Caleb Spielman
Mrs. Lajeunesse
Honors English 10
July 18th, 2017
The Catcher in The Rye Summer Essay
In J.D Savlingers book The Catcher in the Rye, the seventeen year old protagonist Holden Caulfield is in a constant battle of who he is, and who he wants to be. The young narrator of this novel is in a hole that seems nearly impossible to get out. Holden is starting to become an adult but is in fear of the adult world and what it contains. He believes that they are just a bunch of phonies and is scared straight of adulthood. He resists as much as he can, but has little choice. Through this journey he is constantly struggling in his walk of life. From class expectation to family, and even himself, Holden is struggling to find answers and fix things that are broken. All of these struggles have one event tied to them and that is the death of his brother Allie. Part of Holden's collapse is due to his inability to accept his brothers death. He is always haunted by the image of his brother lying dead in his tomb. He wants beautiful things to last, and that part of the reason why he despises adulthood. The reality is too much for Holden in his eyes. Holden believes that Childhood and Adulthood are both separate and drastically different. These beliefs is the reason Holden Caulfield doesn't fit into neither adulthood or childhood. From the being of the novel Holden's view on adulthood is negative. Although he has no choice of becoming an adult, he
The Catcher in the Rye is a novel about a sixteen year old boy, Holden Caulfield, who tells the story of his experience of exploring New York after being expelled from his high school, Pencey Prep. Throughout his travels, Holden seeks to find truth and a sense of belonging in the “phony” realm of adulthood: the stage of life that he is entering but is not yet willing to accept. Over the course of the novel, Holden often ridicules the adult world, idolizing the idea of childhood instead, as well as the purity and innocence it contains. His strong feelings of alienation constantly incite feelings of wanting to run away from, or escape the situations that he is put in. Furthermore, Holden feels as if he needs to protect children from transitioning
The resistance of maturity and adulthood is greatly expressed throughout the novel. “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger. Both fear and trauma created during past events can cause a delay or rejection in maturity. Holden is unable to let go of his past and is constantly trying to live in a memory, this causes him to want to stay with his childhood and never transition into adulthood Holden’s fear of adulthood causes him isolate himself from society in order to preserve his inner child innocence. Furthermore, Holden’s resistance of maturity, also leads him to constantly wanting to protect innocence. Lastly, Holden’s inability step out of his immaturity leads him to act impulsively and self-deceive. All these actions and thoughts are signs of immaturity and are the outcome of a fear and trauma that occurred in the past.
Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, is stuck in between two very important phases of life. As James Bryan would say Holden “is poised between two worlds: one he can not return to and one he fears to enter.” Holden Caulfield grasps on to childhood because adulthood confuses him. He does often contemplate about adulthood, but he still seems to not understand many concepts that occur within the adult world. Holden Caulfield makes a great deal of decisions that show that he is still acting like a child, but he also shows a lot of actions that have him leaning towards the progression into adulthood. Even though he makes these crucial actions that could lead him into adulthood he always seems to fall right back into his
Holden Caulfield is a very, very troubled young boy in a grown up filled world. In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher In The Rye, 16 year old Holden Caulfield is stuck in a rut. He has been expelled from numerous schools, including his current one, Pencey Prep. Holden has been a troubled kid since the death of his older brother, Allie. Allie has played a big role in Holden’s life, and was completely traumatized by his death. Along with those family struggles relating to Allie’s death, Holden has a hard time accepting his adulthood. He wrestles with mental illness and growing up with all of those “phonies”. Even more so, he struggles with the idea of the person he is going to grow into. The environment of The
Before being a teenager was recognized as a part of human growth there was an awkward bridge between childhood and adulthood. In “The Catcher in The Rye” Holden Caulfield finds teenagehood to be an awkward bridge with depression and loneliness. J.D. Salinger, the author of the novel, uses Holden’s depression to make him flawed and unreliable. Holden’s flaws and unreliability makes him the perfect depiction of a teenager going through depression. The death of Allie was the main catalyst of Holden’s depression.
In J. D Salinger 's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden, goes through many hardships in his journey to self-knowledge. In the beginning, Holden has to deal with being kicked out of school and not having any place to call home. He is also struggling with the unfortunate tragedy of the death of his beloved younger brother Allie. At the same time, Holden is trying to deal with growing up and accepting the adult world. Throughout the novel Salinger addresses the conflicts faced by a young man struggling with the trials and tribulations of growing up while also confronting personal loss and loneliness along the way.
Catcher in the Rye allows people to understand childhood and the innocence with it. But, no matter how much you try, everyone has to grow up. Holden doesn’t accept this reality and refuses to growing up, even comparing it to
In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger a journey is depicted through acceptance, identity, mortality, youth and knowledge. The story is told in flashback by seventeen year old Holden Caulfield who is allocated in a mental hospital. Holden is a depressed teenager who faces his sexuality, death and phonies. All of his concerns are elevated by being kicked out of his Prep School Pencey for failing all of his classes besides one, English. However Holden chooses to run away from reality and drowns himself in liquor and cigarettes, he does not realize that there are other outlets to escape from reality.
There are certain qualities that define maturity, and they vary from person to person. Throughout the story, Holden Caulfield, the sixteen year old protagonist of “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger is slowly but surely becoming a mature, young boy. He battles through his teenage life because he is caught between two worlds; one of pure bliss and innocence, the other of a mature adult. As he aspires to be “the catcher in the rye”, he wants all children to hold on to their innocence as long as they can because he feels the world is full of “phony” adults. However with the help of some friends and family, he is able to realize that he cannot save all children and that they will eventually have to grow up. Jeannette Walls, the author and main character of the memoir, “A Glass
The Catcher in the Rye, by Jerome David Salinger, reveals the hardships that teenagers endure as they mature and enter adulthood. In this novel, Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year -old who has been kicked out of several schools, undergoes a gamut of problems. First, at the beginning of the novel, it is clear that Holden has a difficulty accepting himself and others; he constantly defines people as "phony". Secondly, as the novel progresses it becomes evident that Holden does not want to enter adulthood. Both problems lead to Holden's failure in his journey of life.
Holden Caulfield is the protagonist in the novel “The Catcher in the Rye”. In the book Holden hears a quote “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he want to live humbly for one” (Salinger 188) which he embraces as he matures throughout the story. Holden’s opinions of childhood and adulthood change as he grows through experience.
Holden Caulfield, the narrator and the main character of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is a young adult, who, at first seems to simply describes his four day adventure in New York City after bring expelled from his forth school. However, at the same time he narrates more; through his many experiences, which he describes in the book, we can see the themes of the work. The theme that definitely stands out is the loss of innocence. Holden portrays himself as an individual, who does not want to grow up and change. From the beginning, it is obvious that Holden does not like anyone, except children. To Holden, the world around him, the adult world and all of its members, is phony. In other words, the innocent world of children is
Becoming an adult is a hard process that we all have to pass through. During the time of adolescence, teenagers desire to explore the adult world, but at the same time, they are sensitive and still immature in many ways. Holden, in the novel “the Catcher in the Rye” (1951) by J.D. Salinger, is an example of this condition. The novel is about, Holden Caulfield, who is 16years old, been expelled from Pencey prep school and tries experience the ‘adult world’ in New York City. When a child reads this novel, they seem to see Holden as a heroic character because he does different things as other characters do in the novel.
In J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, a young man named Holden Caulfield is on the edge of adulthood. He is a bright kid but struggles with many mental diseases mainly because of the passing of his brother Allie. This has caused him to not focus on school and has got him kicked out of many schools. He did not have many friends and he did not like many people. He thought of everyone as phony. Holden does not want to confront adulthood in fear of losing his childhood because of the fear of change, conformity to the phony world and the passing of his younger brother Allie.
Teenage years are sometimes believed to be a fun time in many people’s lives; but the transition between childhood and becoming an adult can be tricky. In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the main character Holden is stuck in between the change of childhood to adulthood because he doesn’t want to let go of childhood and the care-free attitude he can have. In adulthood, people have to have some sense of maturity, and Holden demonstrates that he isn’t ready for that until towards the end of the novel. Holden is stubborn at the beginning of The Catcher in the Rye because he is not alert to the world surrounding him. The reader sees him transform and become mature because he comes to terms with his life and realizes that he was wrong about growing up, and that he is ready to come to terms with the end of his childhood.